Amsterdam Publishers is the largest publisher of Holocaust memoirs in Europe. It was founded in 2012 by Liesbeth Heenk. Since 2019 it focuses on Holocaust-related literature.
Amsterdam Publishers started publishing ebooks on art in 2012. One of their earliest releases was an ebook on Rembrandt etchings, and accompanied an exhibition on Rembrandt at the Teylers museum in Haarlem in 2013. It was the first time a digital publication accompanied an exhibition. In 2015, the imprint started running self-publishing workshops, which was later accompanied by an instructional handbook published in Dutch.
Amsterdam Publishers added their first non-art titles in 2014. Steinberg's Outcry was an early commercial success. Since 2019, the publisher has focused exclusively on Holocaust Memoirs. The founder, Liesbeth Heenk, has stated that the mission of the imprint is to counter anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Heenk's stable of writers includes a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors as well as second and third-generation members of survivorsâ families.
Amsterdam Publishers is one of the few international publishing houses based in the Netherlands. Its authors are international (mainly from the US), and books are (being) published in English, Albanian, Czech, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Sinhalese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.
On the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of the publishing house, the Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York hosted an Amsterdam Publishers authors event on 12 September 2022, and one in 2024. Since various authors were unable to attend an event in one location, the publisher decided to host a worldwide author gathering on Zoom in September 2025. In November 2022, a 7-day booktour in Albania and Kosovo took place to promote Dr Anna Kohen's Flower of Vlora in the Albanian language, Lulja e Vlorës.
At the 35th annual conference of the World Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, held in Paris from September 12 to 15, 2025, Liesbeth Heenk gave a talk and moderated a session on how to write and publish the survival stories of parents and grandparents.
At the International Conference in March 2026: Holocaust research: past, present and future at Western Galilee College in Acco (Israel) she will be giving a lecture about the transformative power of personal testimony. At Beth Juliana in Herzliya this paper will also be given.
Amsterdam Publishers set up a private online space where authors can communicate and can support each other. Almost 100 of its authors are active in this online group.
Liesbeth Heenk on her motivation to publish stories of the Holocaust:
My motivation is connected to a sense of injustice. It most likely started with my mother telling me and my siblings at the dinner table how she, as a young girl, used to carry pamphlets in her bike for the Dutch resistance. One doesnâÂÂt realize the significance of these things until much later. On a deeper level, I feel a strong need to do something meaningful, to change the world as much as an individual is capable of changing the world.
Amsterdam Publishers has been named "2024 Publisher of the Year" by the Outstanding Creator Award. In 2025 the publishing house has released its 100th Holocaust book.
The reservoir of true Holocaust stories continues to grow. I will consider my job to be unfinished until six million stories are told. I am 62 years old now, so hopefully still have a long time to go, but I want to ensure that even after I am gone the reservoir of stories will remain and be read. This is very important to me. From: "On Publishing Holocaust Memoirs: An Interview with Liesbeth Heenk, Founder of Amsterdam Publishers, in: AJL, vol. 23 (2024), pp. 107
On 29 June 2025, coinciding with the American Librarians Association event in Philadelphia, where the publisher â assisted by eight of its authors â presented a selection of her books, the publisher was honored by the Jewish community of the city at Rodelph Shalom. The publishers' presence at the event caught the attention of various journalists.
Jonathan Schloss in The Algemeiner of 28 November 2025: "I published with a boutique publisher run by a non-Jewish agnostic woman with a deeply grounded and passionate moral compass. Liesbeth HeenkâÂÂs Amsterdam Publishers has published over 100 Holocaust-related books written by survivors and second-generation and third-generation authors from all religious backgrounds. IâÂÂd argue that she is not âÂÂfightingâ anything. Rather, she proactively encourages vigilance against society breaking down due to irrational hate through true cautionary, inspirational stories."
Holocaust Library
Amsterdam Publishers specialises in memoirs by Holocaust survivors, Second Generation survivors and Third Generation survivors. These include memoirs by Joseph Schupack, Janina Altman, Hank Brodt, Nanette Blitz Konig, Natalie Hess, Walter Leopold, Professor Paul Davidovits, Dr. Robert Krell, Leon Kleiner, Halina Kleiner, Henry Reiss, Sara Lustigman Omelinksi, Jan Yohay Remetz, Roman Halter, Andrew Laszlo, Leokadia Schmidt, Rudi Haymann, Wolf Holles, Benjamin Parket, Valentina Freimane, Iboja Wandall-Holm, Ignacy Chiger, Dr. Yakov Adler, and Luba Wrobel Goldberg. Their memoirs are part of the series Holocaust Survivor Memoirs WWII. Many of these survivors can be found on this List of Holocaust survivors.
In addition to survivor testimonies, Amsterdam Publishers publishes works by second- and third-generation authors in the series Holocaust Survivor True Stories and Holocaust Heritage, which focus on the intergenerational impact of the Holocaust.
The series Jewish Children in the Holocaust comprises testimonies written by Holocaust survivors who were hidden as children in the Netherlands and Belgium during the Second World War. Contributors to this series include Dr. Robert Krell, Joseph Gosler, and Agnes Schipper.
In 2021, Amsterdam Publishers expanded its catalogue with the introduction of the New Jewish Fiction series. In 2022, the publisher added the Holocaust Books for Young Adults series, which includes Running for Shelter by Suzette Sheft (born 2006), a work based on the true story of her grandmother.
On a regular basis, foreign translations are being published, among others in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Ukrainian. None of these appear in the list below.
Amsterdam Publishers has announced plans to introduce a new series of Kindertransport memoirs in late 2026, focusing on firsthand survivor accounts of Jewish children rescued from Nazi-controlled Europe.
In addition to Holocaust-related works, Amsterdam Publishers has published the memoirs of Omar Ndizeye and Hyppolite Ntigurirwa, which document their experiences during the Rwandan genocide. This line of publication was later discontinued in order to concentrate exclusively on Holocaust literature and Jewish history.